8:23 AM,
May 6, 2014

Former Rutgers University football player Eric LeGrand is teaming with Sky Blue FC for a fundraiser this week.

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As a former Rutgers football player and a national symbol of inspiration, Eric LeGrand appreciates women's soccer players for a very specific reason that fits both of these identities.

"When they fall down, they get up," LeGrand said. "In men's soccer, they flop, they scream. In women's soccer, they get up and go after another person. That's the best part."

Sure, LeGrand relates to displays of toughness on the field, but he also understands the metaphorical rise from adversity. Less than four years after he was paralyzed from the neck down, the Avenel native is a champion of spinal cord injury ...